It’s a good problem to have: Going to Smarter Faster Payments 2024 and making sure you don’t miss a thing.

“You have to plan your whole schedule on where you want to be and at what time, because it’s packed full of information,” said Lisa S. Coffey, Chief Innovation Officer at Corporate America Credit Union.

To ensure they don’t miss a thing, Corporate America uses a divide and conquer approach, sending several team members to Payments to attend as many sessions as possible. And as Coffey noted, Payments “impacts all areas of your organization, you don’t have to just send ACH professionals to this conference. And we don’t any longer.”

Coffey, who is also a member of the Nacha Board of Directors and the Dean of the TPI Board of Regents, was on Nacha’s Payments SmartCast podcast offering a preview of Smarter Faster Payments 2024, taking place May 6-9 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. 

Everyone at Payments has their own important reasons for attending. For Raven Johnson, AAP, APRP, meeting the obligations to keep her accreditations is top of mind.

“Being able to satisfy the continuing education requirements with ease is a win. I’m very, very, very thankful,” said Johnson, ACH Leader at Corporate America and a member of Nacha’s APRP Oversight Panel. 

For anyone thinking about obtaining their AAP or APRP, there’s an important stop you should make at Payments, said Ashley Mustico, AAP, APRP, Nacha’s Director of Education and Accreditation.

“The Accreditation Awareness Center is exactly how it sounds. It is intended to raise awareness of the various accreditations that Nacha offers,” said Mustico. “The courses in the Accreditation Awareness Center directly relate to the body of knowledge that the attendees would need to have a firm grasp on, in order to successfully sit for either the AAP or the APRP exam.”

Finally, Payments is not all work and no play. Networking opportunities this year include what Mustico called two “must attend events”: Tuesday’s exhibit hall networking reception and Wednesday Night Out, co-sponsored by ePayResources, EPCOR and NEACH Payments Group. This special event will be 1970s themed to play homage to Nacha’s 50th birthday – where we can celebrate our past innovations and dance the night away celebrating the bright future of payments system innovation and interoperability. Johnson said Monday’s AAP and APRP Reception is a great opportunity to “network and build relationships” with her fellow accreditation holders.

For Coffey, the entire Payments event is invaluable. 

“The knowledge and the people you meet and the contacts you make and the networking that you do at Payments—you can’t beat it.”

The complete podcast is available on Nacha.org. To learn more about Smarter Faster Payments 2024, visit the conference website.